IEEE Spectrum December, 2007 - 6

responsible for nearly half of all coalition
troop casualties in Iraq.
Analysts regarded iRobot, a
375-employee publicly traded company
with revenues of US $189 million last
year, as the favored bidder. But privately
held Robotic FX, which reportedly has
eight employees, won the contract,
valued at $279.9 million. The news
knocked iRobot's stock down nearly
30 percent in the following days.
Last month iRobot was granted a
preliminary injunction prohibiting
Robotic FX from selling the Negotiator
in its current design. The Army, which
initially opposed iRobot's request for an
injunction, arguing that it could delay
the delivery of robots to the troops,
later decided to freeze the contract and
reevaluate Robotic FX's ability to carry
out the contract.
The stakes are high for both sides.
Ahed revealed during the court hearings
that an unnamed major defense company
is interested in acquiring Robotic FX, a
deal that could reward its founder handsomely. For iRobot, the possibility of its
allegedly stolen designs falling into the
hands of a large, deep-pocketed competitor is a worrisome development.

IRobot coRp.

The ARmy cReATed the xBot program
to address a pressing need of U.S. troops
in Iraq. The robots currently used by
specialized bomb-disposal squads are
too big and too heavy for regular soldiers on patrol and convoy missions to
take with them. A smaller, lighter robot
would allow troops to inspect suspicious
objects before calling the bomb squad.
To procure the robots, the Army
prepared a set of requirements and organized a two-stage competition: a technical test, to see which robots met the
requirements, and a reverse auction, in
which the participant making the lowest
bid would get the contract.
The technical test took place at the
Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala., in
August. The robots-required to weigh
no more than 22.6 kilograms and feature
a manipulator arm, among other things-
had to traverse sand, gravel, and water
pits, maneuver their arms to lift objects,
and position their cameras, in scenarios
that simulated IED investigations.
iRobot brought two robots: a lighter
version of PackBot and a new 14-kg robot
called the Small Unmanned Ground
Vehicle, developed under the Army's
Future Combat Systems program.
Robotic FX brought its Negotiator. All
three robots passed the test.

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The reverse auction occurred the
following month. The starting bid was
$305 million, and the companies kept
lowering their bids until iRobot gave up.
Robotic FX won the contract with a bid
of $279.9 million (iRobot's final bid was
$286 million).
iRobot, not surprisingly, disapproved of the procurement process. A
reverse auction is normally used to buy
commoditized products such as spare
parts-not advanced systems like robots,
says Joseph Dyer, president of iRobot's
government and industrial division.
The procurement was also unusual
for its brevity and detailed requirements,
according to several robotics executives
interviewed by IEEE Spectrum on condition
of anonymity. It appeared, these sources
say, that the Army knew exactly which
robots it wanted. "It wasn't normal; it
was very quick," says a senior executive
familiar with the xBot program whose
company has contracts with the military.
A spokeswoman for the Program
Executive Office for Simulation,
TRaining, and Instrumentation
(PEO STRI), the Army organization in
charge of the xBot contract, says its
procurement process "was the best way
to satisfy the urgent requirement for
robots." PEO STRI officers, based on a
"preaward survey," had determined that
Robotic FX was capable of fulfilling the
3000-robot contract, but late in October
they decided to put the award aside and
conduct another assessment.

microcontroller, Robotic FX's Ahed told
Spectrum. It has a modular plug-and-play
architecture that accommodates various
accessories and sensors. That approach
resulted in what Ahed calls "a simple,
low-cost system." Robotic FX will not
disclose the price of the Negotiator, but
in 2005 the Illinois State Police bought
six units for a total of $122 940. The
company says it has sold 80 Negotiators
to federal, state, and local agencies in the
United States since 2004.
iRobot's patent-infringement suit,
filed in the U.S. District Court in
Birmingham, Ala., focuses not on
the robot's brains but on its mobility
capabilities. iRobot claims Robotic FX
violated its patents No. 6,263,989 and
No. 6,431,296, which describe how the
PackBot uses a pair of main tracks to
move around (like a miniature tank)
and a pair of auxiliary tracks, mounted
on the sides, to go over obstacles and
climb stairs, a capability that made the
robot stand out among competitors. The
Negotiator has auxiliary tracks similar
to those on the PackBot.
In a separate lawsuit over pilfered
trade secrets, filed in the U.S. District
Court in Boston, iRobot accuses Ahed of

The PAckBoT and the Negotiator may
have similar capabilities, but they came
about under different circumstances.
The PackBot was originally developed
under a multimillion-dollar program
of the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA). It carries
a Pentium-powered onboard
computer running Linux
and custom control
software. A fully
equipped PackBot
can cost more
than $100 000.
In contrast, the
Negotiator was
designed
around a
basic 8-bit

LOOKING FOR
AN ARMY CONTRACT:
Similarities between iRobot's PackBot [right] and its rival
the Negotiator, from Robotic FX [opposite], led iRobot to file
two lawsuits against Robotic FX.

December 2007 | IEEE Spectrum | NA 11

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum December, 2007